X48 delayed thanks to Asus
 

Intel's X48 chipset was meant to have been soft launched and hard launched by now, but as you might have noticed, it shines with its abscence. From what we've heard from several sources, you can (blaim) thank Asus for this.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...k=view&id=5002

Do they really think X48 will sell better late when X38 couldn't compete with P35 already?

not better, but if they want to move X48 they have to price it close to X38, making X38 obsolete and they have to get rid of overstock at loss

Forget X48, I am honestly curious about P45. If what they say is true and it is a 65nm shrink of P35, it should further improve headroom and thermals...

When is it going to be released?

2nd Quarter, although Anandtech's people were even dubious of it actually seeing the light of day for some reason.

I suspect they will launch it, simply because Nehalem won't fully launch until 2009 instead of the end of this year, just as Penryn has done. The idea they wouldn't launch it made no sense to me, G45 is a substantial upgrade and has every reason to launch... no reason to not add P45 for some fab savings.

some people say even january and that would put NV under serious fire as their chipsets already aren't competitive from a thermal perspective

I may prefer to not support Intel, but I'm never going to switch to Nvidia regardless of their chipsets. To many problems over and over that you just don't have with Intel chipsets. I'm not chauvinistic enough to pay more for less just to avoid Intel products though.

Reports given around last fall originally said X48 was due in 2Q'08 anyway, so frankly I don't expect anything to be early. Nothing seems to ever actually be early regardless of what is said!